17-Dec-2013 -- Vacations of December 2013. It’s the moment of visiting my parents at Lavras city, south of Minas Gerais state, more than 2,000 kilometers beeline distant of my home at Fortaleza city. As in the previous year, I thought that a trip by plane wouldn’t be so interesting, and it wouldn’t allow me to visit new Confluences. In the vacations of previous year, I made the trip by car with my family, in a more than 7,000-kilometers trip that allowed me to visit five new Confluences. The narrative of that trip starts at 6S 38W.

In this new trip, instead of going by car, I decided to go by bus. Furthermore, instead of going straight line, I decided to make a huge detour to the West, aiming to visit Tocantins and Goiás states. By this time, however, my family opted not to accompany me and they made the trip by plane.

My intention making this detour was to know Tocantins and Goiás states and their respective capitals, Palmas and Goiânia. I haven’t ever gone to any of the two capitals, and the state of Tocantins, I haven’t ever gone to it, too. In relation to Goiás state, I made a quick visit to it in the year 2009.

I caught a bus at Fortaleza city at 19:00 on Saturday, 14 December and started the biggest leg of the trip, up to Palmas, a trip with one day and two nights. After travelling the whole night, we passed by Teresina city, capital of Piauí state, at sunrise. We then followed some more kilometers, entered in Maranhão state and stopped to make a breakfast at Caxias city.

The whole Sunday was dedicated to cross Maranhão state. We stopped to lunch at Bela Vista do Maranhão city. We even passed by Açailândia and Imperatriz cities. At night, we passed by Estreito, the last city of Maranhão state, crossed the Tocantins river and entered in Tocantins state.

The second night of the trip would be by Tocantins state. We passed by Araguaína and Paraíso do Tocantins cities and arrived at Palmas about 6:00 of Monday, 16 December after travelling about 2,010 kilometers during 35 hours.

Palmas is the newest capital of Brazil, built at the end of 1980 decade in order to be the capital of new Tocantins state, dismembered of Goiás state. The city lies at the edge of a wide part of Tocantins river, 7,800 meters wide, and has pleasant leisure areas at the edge of the river. The city architecture, totally planned, is formed by two big perpendicular avenues, which cross each other in a huge square, the Praça dos Girassóis square, where all state government buildings lie. Around the two avenues, forming a chess board structure, lie the remaining avenues, always crossing each other in roundabouts.

Tocantins state is part of the North region of Brazil, a region characterized by the Amazonas basin and by its huge abundance of water. Moreover, the state has two huge rivers of this basin, Tocantins and Araguaia rivers. By the way, excess of water would by something that follows me in the whole day dedicated to visit confluences in Tocantins.

After arriving at Palmas, I checked in a hotel and spent all Monday to rest and to know the city. At night, I went to the car rental agency and caught the car that I would use to visit confluences, in the following day. As in all days dedicated to confluence visits, I planned three Confluences.

In the following day, Tuesday, 17 December, I woke up at 6:00, had breakfast, checked out the hotel and started to drive at 7:30 heading to the first Confluence of the day, 10S 49W, a very easy Confluence, due to its location less than 100 meters from the highway.

I left Palmas, crossed the bridge over Tocantins river and followed by TO-080 highway by 60 kilometers, up to Paraíso do Tocantins city, making the opposite way of the one made by bus in the previous day. Then, I followed 25 kilometers more up to Vila Monte Santo city, very near the Confluence. I crossed the city, headed a few kilometers and stopped the car at the edge of the highway, in a farm entrance. I left the car, crossed the highway, crossed a fence and hiked a few meters up to get all GPS zeroes. Although it wasn’t raining, the bush was wet, due to the rain of previous day.

After the quick visit, I came back to Paraíso do Tocantins and headed south by BR-153 highway. This narrative continues at 11S 49W.